


Easter Island

by Jade_II



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 15:36:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12038949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_II/pseuds/Jade_II
Summary: The Doctor and River discover a lot more Easter than expected on Easter Island.





	Easter Island

The Doctor had a diary now.

He was a bit self-conscious about it really, because it was so very obviously almost empty, but he tried to hide it as he paged nonchalantly through pages and pages of... nothing.

River smirked. “Early days for you, my love?”

He rolled his eyes. “Apparently.”

“Jim the fish?” she asked.

“Jim the fish?” he repeated. “Who’s Jim the fish?”

“Oh, you’ll find out. What about the Bone Meadows?”

“Yes!” He paged backwards until he reached the corresponding entry. “Ah-ha! Yes, I’ve done those.”

“Recently?”

“Define ‘recently’.”

“Within the last decade?”

“Ah. Then yes. Definitely recently.”

“Good. Me too. A bit less recently, but I remember it well.” River quirked an eyebrow and snapped her diary shut, surveying their surroundings. “Now. Easter Island.”

The Doctor looked around. “Yeah. Bit... sort of _empty_ , isn’t it?”

He was sure the population of the island at this time was supposed to be more than zero. There were stone huts and chicken houses (chickens included) and other signs of habitation – just no trace of the inhabitants themselves. The carved rock figures the island was famous for were keeping watch over... nobody.

River was nodding. “That’s why we’re here, Doctor.”

“Really? I thought we were here because your vortex manipulator decided to dump you on the roof of the TARDIS while I was in the vortex and I had to do an emergency landing. I’m still amazed you weren’t reduced to a smear of atoms spread across time and space.”

She winked. “You can spread me across anything, sweetie, once we’re finished here.”

The Doctor felt himself blushing; yep, definite blush, starting over his cheekbones and spreading – _spreading_ , why had he ever felt the need to use that word? – _propagating_ rapidly across the rest of his face. How did she _do_ this to him? He was over a thousand years old; he shouldn’t be going all awkward over some stupid innuendo like this. He was beginning to wonder if she would always do this to him... He should be used to it by now, he felt. But after Berlin it had been clear that she was never going to be the one blushing and giggling, even right at her beginning, which used to be one of his favourite fantasies, and now somehow he was overreacting to compensate.

And she was _laughing_.

“Tell me you’re always this much fun when you’re young,” she said, eyes twinkling.

“I am not _young_ ,” he grumbled. “I was old long before I ever met you. I’m an old, old man.”

“Well, you’re certainly grumpy enough to be an old man.” River patted him on the cheek, walking past him to better survey the landscape. “Cheer up. I bet there are monsters here.”

That made him look up. “Really? Where?”

She pointed. “I can’t think of anything else likely to make that kind of footprints.”

The Doctor followed her gaze to the beach at the bottom of the slope. Sure enough, a trail of large, elongated footprints led out of the vegetation, across the sand and into the ocean beyond. Judging by the shape, he would say they belonged to some kind of big... rodent.

River was already walking towards them. “What do you think, Doctor? Giant rabbit?”

“Giant rabbit?” He hurried after her. “Don’t be ridiculous; why would a rabbit be walking into the sea? Besides, rabbit trails are very distinctive because of the way they hop. Whatever left these was clearly a biped.”

“And could swim, apparently.” River shielded her eyes and looked out at the ocean. “I wonder where it was going.”

“Well...” the Doctor followed her gaze. “We could always find out.”

They grinned.

 

River was in front of and almost underneath him in the cold, cold water. The Doctor was sure she was doing this on purpose – teasing him in every way she could think of, because he was absolutely positive that the simple act of _swimming_ didn’t need to involve her kicking her legs in such a provocative manner. Her _very nice_ legs, as she was no doubt aware. Yes, alright, the wetsuit she was wearing was very functional, and he supposed it wasn’t her fault that it accentuated everything that was most attractive about her figure – which was in fact everything about her figure, full stop. He could see his future self appreciating that figure very much. One day.

She looked back at him and winked, somehow managing to smile around the rebreather clutched between her lips. He frowned, because he wasn’t quite sure what else to do, and followed when she dived deeper into the murky depths. The ocean floor was illuminated by the torch she held in one hand, metre after metre of nothing but sand and fish – no giant rabbits to speak of. Not that there would be, of course; rabbits weren’t renowned for their diving skills. And it was entirely possible that the whatever-it-was with the rodent-like footprints had been picked up by a boat or even a spaceship and that their underwater foray would prove fruitless, but the Doctor had to admit he wouldn’t regret it even so. River was clearly enjoying herself, and somehow that gave him quite a thrill.

She had stopped, he realised belatedly when he accidentally ploughed into her, and he had to clutch at her arm to halt his forward motion. River looked around, shaking her head fondly, and pointed.

The Doctor squinted in the direction she was showing him, but it wasn’t until she turned the torch off that he saw anything.

Lights. Very faint, in the gloom, but they looked almost like the running lights of a spaceship.

River’s mouth formed a grin around her rebreather and she kicked off again, inclining her head. The Doctor obeyed her silent instruction and followed.

It was definitely a spaceship, he saw as they approached. A very large spaceship considering it was hidden underwater, and the specific design was not one he recognised. He tapped River on the shoulder and raised his eyebrows at her in question. She shook her head; clearly she didn’t know any more than he did.

They were close enough to touch the ship now, but chose not to – there could be sensors, for one thing, or nastier things which could be activated, besides which the water around the ship was freezing cold. The temperature inside must be sub-zero, the Doctor surmised. They swam close to the hull, peering at lights and markings and equipment and trying to find clues as to its origin. There were windows here and there as well, most of which revealed dark, empty rooms. Almost everything was nondescript and generic; the only useful information to be gleaned was from the proportions of the interiors they could glimpse, doorways and ceilings far too high to have been built for humans.

River removed her rebreather and looked at him. _Giant rabbits,_ she mouthed.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and pointed at a panel of flickering lights just above them, half of which were already dead. _Broken_ , he mouthed back, and she nodded her agreement.

 _Crashed?_ she replied. Replacing her rebreather, she turned her torch back on and ran it over the hull.

The Doctor nodded, reaching for his screwdriver. He scanned the panel, but the results didn’t tell him anything other than the _broken_ he had already surmised.

Something flashed in the window beneath them.

River looked at him, putting a hand over her torch, and they both swam downwards to peer through the clear pane into the darkened room. Something was definitely moving in there; something tall, but it was impossible to make out any details.

The Doctor heard a noise then, and looked around to see something zooming towards them out of the gloom around the curve of the ship. River reacted instantly, reaching into her backpack and producing a – a _harpoon gun_? Where had she found a harpoon gun? She certainly hadn’t brought it with her, not in that tiny bag she’d had, unless of course her bag was bigger on the inside, which he supposed was entirely possib—

His chain of thought was interrupted when he was yanked back roughly by the collar of his shirt, River glaring at him even as she aimed her weapon. The thing swimming rapidly towards them quickly revealed itself to be some kind of drone, obviously launched from the ship, quite probably by the creature they had seen inside. But what kind of drone? A sensor drone, or—

Defense drone, it abruptly became clear when River pulled him out of the way of a projectile, and it was a good thing she had good reflexes or he may have had to regenerate underwater, which he was fairly certain would complicate matters exceedingly. Having assured herself that he was unhurt, River shot a miniature harpoon straight through the drone’s middle. It died instantly, the little light on top blinking out and the movement of its various appendages suddenly ceasing.

River grabbed it and shoved it under her arm, still clutching her gun, and used her other hand to tug him back the way they had come. The Doctor stole the drone, just to feel useful, leaving River more freedom for defensive manoeuvres if required. They swam back to shore as quickly as they could, glancing back constantly for signs of pursuit but seeing none.

River spat out her rebreather as soon as they broke the surface, stuffing it into her backpack. “Giant rabbits from outer space, crash-landed in the sea,” she said breathlessly, grinning as they found their feet and began to slog back to the beach. “ _Unfriendly_ giant rabbits. Wonder what they were doing on the island?”

“ _Why_ are you still insisting on giant rabbits?” the Doctor demanded, palming his own rebreather and shaking out the dead drone in his arms, which was much heavier now they were out of the water.

“Did you see how high their ceilings are? Must be to accommodate the ears,” River said, laughing, and the Doctor couldn’t quite tell if she was joking or not.

“Yes, well,” he said, deciding to ignore the prospect of giant rabbits for the moment and holding up the drone. “Let’s see what this can tell us.”

 

Not much, as it turned out.

“Sixtieth century,” River read off the scanner, rubbing her hair with a towel while he sat on the floor, pointing his screwdriver at various bits of drone. “Osiris Alliance.”

“Yes, but which part of the Alliance?” he asked, tinkering with the drone’s sensors. “The Osiris Alliance is huge, and mostly disconnected, can’t even remotely be described as a coherent whole. That information is about as much use as saying it’s from ‘somewhere in the Milky Way’.”

“I know, sweetie,” River said patiently, shaking her head. “But that’s all it says.”

The Doctor sighed, sitting back. “Well, that’s a bit rubbish, isn’t it?”

River rolled her eyes, draping the towel over her shoulders and reaching down to haul him to his feet. “Never mind. We can always go back down for another look. In the meantime, perhaps it would be a good idea to find some dry clothes?”

Looking down, the Doctor was reminded that he was, indeed, still soaking wet. “Yes, perhaps, alright,” he conceded, heading for the stairs.

“You need some help?” River asked, raising an eyebrow suggestively.

“No!” he said quickly – perhaps too quickly, certainly too quickly to really think about it, but maybe he didn’t want to really think about it. Just _no_ was easier. “No, thank you, I can manage.”

If River was disappointed she didn’t show it. “If you say so,” she said, her raised eyebrow taking on an amused quirk, and when she turned back to the scanner the Doctor made his escape.

Escaping River was getting more and more difficult.

Because he was becoming less and less certain that he wanted to.

In the beginning he had had this sort of mad theory that if he avoided her enough she would never love him the way she clearly had in the Library, and if that happened perhaps she would never summon him there at all and they would never have met and he wouldn’t be carrying all this _guilt_ around all the time. That theory had been shot to smithereens long ago, of course, but the guilt remained.

And it kept growing.

It had been bad enough before, but now that he knew who she was and how she had lost her childhood and her regenerations because of _him_ it was almost too much to bear. How could he bring her any joy when he had caused her so much pain? And how could he deserve any joy himself?

And then she would turn up and they’d have adventures and kissing and he enjoyed himself immensely, but then the guilt would come crashing back as soon as he had a moment’s pause. They had made love, the last time he had seen her, and he had actually been so overcome that he had cried afterwards. What made it worse was that she seemed to understand, only she couldn’t possibly understand because it wasn’t just her past that made him feel this way; more than anything, still, it was her future. Her death. Because somehow every new thing he learned about her made her fate harder to bear.

And he didn’t ever want to have to take her to see the Singing Towers and say that final goodbye.

He peeled his wet clothes off and donned a dry set, trying to lock all those thoughts securely away as he returned to the control room.

River was sitting cross-legged in the jump seat, hair tied back in a ponytail now, examining the drone. She looked up when he trotted down the stairs. “Ah, there you are. Shall we take a walk?”

The Doctor frowned. “A walk? What about the giant rabbits? Not that they _are_ giant rabbits, but...”

She was grinning at him. “I just thought, sweetie, that now we’ve seen where the footprints were heading, it might be an idea to follow the trail the other way and see where they came from.”

“...Oh.” He brightened. “ _That_ kind of walk.”

Instinctively, he offered her his arm.

 

They started back on the beach, where there was still no sign of anything having pursued them out of the water. This time, though, they followed the footprints inland.

The island’s vegetation was lush, and largely undisturbed at this point in time – undisturbed except for where it had been crushed by a pair of giant feet, that was.

Various parts of it had also, apparently, been nibbled.

“I’m still leaning towards giant rabbit,” River said, examining the remains of some large leaves which had been eaten by something even larger. She was being so insistent about the rabbit thing that she was almost starting to convince him.

Not that he was going to tell her that.

“That drone didn’t strike me as very rabbit-like,” he said instead, picking his way across the underbrush.

“It would have struck you if I hadn’t pulled you out of the way,” River remarked, following.

“Nonsense. I don’t need you to protect me from every possible little danger, you know.”

“If you say so. Watch out for that branch.”

The Doctor turned. “What br—Ow!”

“The branch you just walked into,” she said calmly.

He rubbed his nose, scowling when he realised it was bleeding. “You did that on purpose,” he complained.

“Of course I did.” River produced a handkerchief from her utility belt and stepped towards him. “Come here, you clumsy idiot.”

“You’re so rude to me,” he said, allowing her to tend to his nose.

“I give as good as I get.”

“If not better.”

“You’re only proving my point, sweetie.” She gripped his jaw with her free hand and dabbed at his upper lip. “There. Good as new.”

She wasn’t moving her hands away, he noticed. He wondered briefly about kissing her, but that thought was swiftly derailed because she kissed him first.

He rather liked being kissed by River Song. She was quite good at it.

And very, very... enthusiastic.

She moaned happily into his mouth and leaned into him, and actually he was glad he was still in pain right now because otherwise he might have had a rather inconvenient reaction to all this.

River broke away and dabbed once more at the tip of his nose. “Come on,” she said, reaching for his hand, and they forged onwards.

The giant whatever-it-was had come from the very centre of the island, it would seem; not that that was very far, technically speaking, but picking one’s way through thick masses of plants was not the fastest way to cross the distance. By the time he and River had completed the journey the sun was beginning to set.

There was a clearing up ahead, a roughly circular dip in the earth, surrounded on all sides by close-set trees set in thick underbrush. The Doctor took the lead as they reached its edge, pushing forward past the flattened area of the last footprint and pulling aside branches and leaves so that he could peer down and across.

His brow wrinkled of its own accord when he saw what was there.

“River...?” he said as she picked her way over to him.

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Do you happen to know why this island is called _Easter_ Island?”

“Because it was first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday, 1722.”

The Doctor stepped aside so that she could see for herself. “Are you sure about that?”

River stared through the opening, moving closer as if she couldn’t quite believe her eyes. “Are those... giant eggs?”

“Yep. And if you look North-West, you’ll see that apparently you were right about the giant rabbits.”

“Well.” River blinked, turning to meet his gaze. “Easter Island, indeed.”

 

They circled carefully around the clearing to take a closer look at the eggs. They were huge, colourful things, almost exactly like the painted or chocolate eggs you got at Easter, except larger.

Much, much larger.

The smallest one was almost as tall as the Doctor, with the largest towering several feet above him. He pressed the palm of his hand against one experimentally, earning him a look from River as she snuck around it, gun in hand.

The egg was warm, almost as warm as a human body, and if he concentrated he could feel the vibrations caused by faint movements inside the shell. The stronger ones were erratic, like a child fidgeting in the womb; weaker but more regular was what must be a heartbeat.

No. _Two_ heartbeats, one faster than the other.

He frowned, storing this information away for future consideration.

“Sweetie,” River hissed, suddenly behind him, and pulled him backwards and behind a larger egg. “Giant rabbits.”

He peeked around the side and saw that she was right. The two giant rabbits he had spotted earlier – well, they weren’t quite like rabbits, they walked on two legs more like stereotypical depictions of the Easter Bunny, which was perhaps even more appropriate given what they were guarding – they were approaching the eggs, stroking and sniffing each one and giving each other concerned looks.

“What are they worried about?” he whispered.

“Us, I should think,” River replied. She raised her gun and clicked the safety off.

The ears of both rabbits pricked up at the sound and they reached for the plasma weapons secured at their backs. The Doctor heard River curse behind him.

“Come on,” she said, grasping at his hand. “Time to run.”

Unfortunately the side of the clearing was not very convenient for running through, thick with vegetation as it was, and the two of them made a huge noise as they crashed into it. The rabbits were shouting behind them now, clearly in pursuit, and River pushed him in front of her as she looked back. A plasma burst lit up their surroundings for a moment as the Doctor fell forward onto a less crowded part of the ground and he thought he heard River hiss, but she was firing back and moving okay so she couldn’t be badly hurt. She shoved him to his feet and into a run again, shooting over her shoulder as she followed.

The sun had set by now and the thick branches and leaves above them shut out most of what light there was, leaving them stumbling forward in the darkness at what was probably a stupid speed, given said darkness. River kept him from running into tree trunks more than once, and he did the same for her when she didn’t turn back from firing a shot in time to stop herself. The giant rabbits were following noisily.

“Are they gaining on us?” he said breathlessly, stumbling over a root and only managing not to fall flat on his face by sheer blind luck.

“Yes,” River replied, her face lit momentarily by another plasma burst. “You may not have noticed, sweetie, but they’ve got longer legs than us. Any brilliant ideas?”

“Keep running?” he suggested, and heard her sigh.

“How did I know you were going to say that?” She grabbed his hand again and he could just make out that she was shaking her head; then she tugged him forward, increasing their pace, and he had to concentrate on keeping his legs as vertical as possible because invisible obstacles were coming at his feet at an even faster rate and if he fell he was fairly sure she might just trample him...

...Oh, but he loved it.

He was grinning, he realised, and the flash of another plasma burst let him see that she was grinning too. She was so _perfect_ , and how could he ever really want a life without her in it? It would be so terribly dull.

“Doctor!” River cried, jerking to a halt and pulling him back, just as he was about to run headlong into a ravine.

“Phew,” he said, looking down at the water sparkling dimly tens of metres below. “Thanks.”

“We seem to be backed into a corner,” River remarked, turning back to watch the giant rabbits approaching in the distance.

The Doctor licked his lips. “Well, less of a corner, more of a straight line really...”

He couldn’t see it but he was sure she was rolling her eyes at that. It was the sort of thing she would do, after all. She turned again, peering down into the ravine.

“Right,” she declared. “In about a minute and a half, Doctor, I am going to be half-way to being an unattractive splatter in the stream down there.” She straightened. “So you’d better be there to catch me.”

“I—wait, what?”

“Are you always this dense when you’re young? Me, decoy; you, knight in shining TARDIS. _Go_ ,” she said, giving him a little push.

The Doctor did as he was told.

River fired off a couple of shots to distract the rabbit creatures from his flight and he ran along the side of the ravine, hoping desperately that he wouldn’t fall in because that would mean not just his death but River’s too, seeing as she was apparently about to jump into it fully expecting the TARDIS to be there to swallow her up. The level of trust that showed always amazed him, but sometimes he thought that was part of why she did it. It was a big, showy _we belong together_ , an _I know you’ve got my back_... an _I love you_ in actions that truly did speak louder than words. River was such a fan of the big and showy. He rather liked that.

He did _not_ like the fact that he couldn’t see, so when he judged himself to be far enough away he took out his screwdriver and used it to illuminate the ground in front of him.

Why hadn’t he thought of that before? Probably because of River, he decided. She was too distracting for her own good.

He found the trail they had left on their way to the clearing and ran back along it as fast as he could – which was not remotely necessary, of course, because River would have already jumped by now and he had no way of knowing if she was safe in the TARDIS or in that nasty splattered state in the stream that she had mentioned. He had a time machine, for goodness’ sake; he could walk at a leisurely pace and still get back to her at the exact same moment as he would if he moved at breakneck speed all the way.

And yet somehow he couldn’t stop running.

Perhaps, he mused, he was subconsciously trying to make up for not having been able to save her – _properly_ save her – the first time. As if putting in extra effort every subsequent time would somehow make it better. As if anything ever could.

Even at a run, it was a long time before he reached the TARDIS. He catapulted himself through the doors and up to the console, inputting the coordinates before his feet had even come to a complete stop.

Then he paused to straighten his bowtie, set the TARDIS in motion, and hurried for the doors.

She wouldn’t be falling too far this time, so no need for the swimming pool, he judged – just some good strong arms to catch her. He only hoped he wouldn’t drop her; he had a feeling she wouldn’t be too forgiving if he did that. 

The TARDIS began to materialise and he flung open the doors, bracing himself against the doorframe and holding one arm out in readiness. He was a dozen metres from the top of the ravine and there was no sign of River; hopefully not because he was too late, he thought fretfully...

Ah. No. There she was. Bounding backwards over the edge like she was jumping on a bouncy castle rather than potentially about to plummet to her death. She didn’t even check first to see if he was there.

But then, she never did.

Probably because he always was.

Her feet, thankfully in sensible shoes this time, almost kicked him in the face when she fell through the doorway. He had to duck out of the way, which nearly caused him to miss her, and in the end he caught her rather awkwardly with his free arm and only narrowly avoided crashing to the floor on top of her. Instead, he just about managed to keep them upright, and he felt a bit smug for exactly 0.87 seconds before she laughed at him.

“What?” he said, disentangling his arm from her waist and stepping back.

“Oh, nothing, sweetie. You’ll get the hang of it.”

The Doctor tugged at his jacket. “I thought that was perfectly reasonable! You’re upright, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose I am. It’s just that usually, we end up doing something more... like this.” She kissed him then, letting herself fall backwards and forcing him to catch her, bending down over her body with his mouth still on hers. Not that he had much choice in the matter – she had a rather firm grip on the back of his head.

Not that he minded.

“I see,” he said a bit breathlessly when she let him come up for air. One of his hands was supporting the small of her back, with the other farther up her body; just over the clasp of her bra, in fact. He knew that because he could _feel_ it pressing into his palm. “And then what happens?” he enquired, certainly not because he hoped it involved the bra in question being removed from River’s body.

River grinned. “Shut the door,” she said, glancing behind him, “and I’ll show you.”

The Doctor pulled her to her feet and stepped back towards the door – shutting it was excellent advice, in fact, because the giant rabbits were peering over the edge of the ravine looking rather astounded, and that could only last for so long before they started shooting again. He waved at them before pushing the doors closed, and was rewarded with the sound of a plasma burst for his trouble.

“Rude,” he muttered, turning towards the console, where River was already setting the TARDIS in motion.

The time rotor began to move and she nodded in satisfaction, heading for the stairs and then pausing at the top of them. “Well, sweetie?” she said. “Are you coming?”

He bounded up to join her and straightened his bowtie. “Yes.”

“Good.”

She bounded off down the corridor and the Doctor had to hurry to try and keep up – which he failed at, because she rounded a corner and disappeared.

“River?” he said, peering around the same corner and seeing nothing but TARDIS. She couldn’t have—well, alright, she _could_ have gone far, if the TARDIS was in the right kind of mood, but he rather hoped she hadn’t.

“Sweetie?” said her voice suddenly from behind him, and he turned to find her leaning out of a door he was _sure_ hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Clearly the TARDIS _was_ in the right kind of mood. He didn’t dwell on it though because River grabbed him by his bowtie and pulled him inside, which reminded him that actually he had been in a different kind of mood altogether, and he buried his hands in her hair and pulled her close for a kiss.

Her hands rested on his face for a moment before creeping down to rid him of his bowtie, then down even farther to work the buttons of his shirt, all the while kissing him back as though there was nothing else in the world but his mouth and hers, all eager tongues and rough lips and biting teeth.

The Doctor pulled her hair out of its tie and broke the kiss to watch it fall around her face, bouncing a bit before it settled. She really did have the most magnificent hair, he thought, tugging on a curl to watch it spring back into place, and her indulgent expression told him that this was a habit of his, and if not, well, he was going to make it one, and then he completely lost his train of thought because River’s hand was slipping past the waistbands of his trousers and his underpants and _touching_ him.

He gasped and she grinned, using her other hand to deftly tug said trousers and underpants away from where that first hand was gripping him really quite firmly and down to his ankles, at which point he gasped again because she took her hand _away_ so that she could bend to untie his shoelaces, and it took her slapping his calf for him to realise that he should probably kick everything off now because she was just so—she was—

replacing her hands with her mouth, now, playfully pinching both of his buttocks, and a third gasp escaped his lips before he managed to get enough of a grip on himself to stop his arms from flailing and tangle his fingers in her hair again instead. She was _doing_ things with her tongue and with her teeth and he was having a very very difficult time forming a coherent thought right now, not that he necessarily needed to be thinking coherently right now, or even thinking at all, really, and—oh.

She’d stopped. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing; it all depended on what came next, he supposed...

The Doctor opened eyes he didn’t actually remember closing to find River pulling her shirt over her head, exposing that bra whose clasp he had wanted so desperately to undo, and he was about to do so but she was yanking her trousers and knickers down in one smooth motion and leaning her body into his as she stepped out of them, pressing the soft skin of her stomach against his erection, and he found his hands moving elsewhere of their own accord; first pushing against her lower back to show her just how much he was enjoying that pressure, though he was sure she knew that already, then down over the curve of her buttocks and between her legs, an awkward angle but enough to leave his fingers slick when he retrieved them, raising them to his mouth to lick them clean.

River let out a low moan at that and quite literally jumped him, wrapping her arms around his neck and bringing both legs up around his waist, and it was all he could do not to lose his balance and to turn and press her against the wall instead, grasping the underside of one thigh firmly for support while his other hand moved to stroke between her folds again, making her whimper.

He liked that sound, he decided, and pressing his thumb against her clit produced the same noises but louder, and he found himself grinning up at her, though she couldn’t see him because her eyes were closed, her head thrown back against the wall and her mouth wide open, making sounds more and more delicious the faster he moved his hand. She swallowed then, muttering incoherent syllables, and reached down to bat his hand away, taking him in her hand instead and guiding him inside of her.

Their eyes locked for just a moment as he shifted his grip on her and began to move, and she smiled a heady smile at him before arching her head back again, proceeding to prove very loudly that she was indeed a screamer, and the _things_ that did to him were quite indescribable. He was crying out too now, quite involuntarily and unreservedly, and they were echoing each other and when her cries reached their peak he was actually worried for a moment that she might hurt herself by the force with which her head hit the wall, but then he was overcome himself and all thought of anything but the feeling of her all around him were banished for one blissful, glorious instant.

Her forehead was resting on his shoulder now, he realised slowly, and he turned, taking slow steps towards the bed – oh, there was a _bed_ , he noted belatedly – as she slowly disentangled her legs and slid down his body, collapsing next to him on the soft sheets with a sigh.

The Doctor climbed beneath the covers, grasping River by the wrist and pulling her along with him. He positioned her carefully with her head on a pillow, pushing her onto her side so that he could finally, _finally_ unhook that damned bra. She giggled when he pressed a kiss to each exposed breast before settling onto the pillow next to her with a contented grin.

“I love you,” River told him. Then, smiling when he didn’t respond, “Too early for you?”

“No,” he replied, thankful for the blissful haze that still enveloped his thoughts, even the not-so-fun ones surfacing now, with horrible timing as usual. “I don’t think...“ He shook his head. “No, it’s not that. Or maybe it is, just not in that way, at least I assume the way you meant it... No.” He looked at her, into those deep, old eyes. He didn’t know how old exactly – spoilers, he was sure – but this had to be a long, long time after Berlin for her. Centuries, if he was any judge. So why did he still feel that her death, when it came, would be far, far too soon?

He swallowed, trying to find a way to explain without telling her too much.

“It’s just that I’ve been presented with this _future_ , this wonderful future where I’m happy and you’re with me and that’s the reason I’m happy, and it’s creeping up on me and now perhaps it could even be starting. And it terrifies me.” He sighed, meeting her gaze again. “I’m afraid to start because I know that it will _end_.”

River nodded slowly. “Everything ends, my love. Does that mean that nothing should begin?” She trailed a finger slowly across his shoulder, looking up at him. “I’ve seen how it happens for you. It’s a long, long time in your future, if that’s any consolation.”

He frowned. “But how can you know it was my end if it wasn’t yours?”

She smiled, but there was pain in her eyes when she answered. “How do you know about mine, sweetie?”

The Doctor swallowed, not quite sure how to answer. “I—“

River interrupted him by pressing a finger to his lips. “Rhetorical question. Besides, I think I know the answer. And it’s okay. As long as you’re there; that’s all I could ask for.”

She replaced her finger with her mouth, and they didn’t talk any more for a while.

 

“So why are they here?” the Doctor said later, pacing up and down as he buttoned his shirt. “They came here to lay their eggs? Why would they do that? Was it even the giant rabbits who laid them? I mean of course they don’t necessarily have to be mammals just because Earth rabbits are mammals, so they could be their eggs, and really it’s the most obvious explanation, so—”

“I don’t think they landed here on purpose,” River cut him off. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling her socks on. “That ship that we saw crash-landed, if I’m any judge.”

“Right, right, excellent point.” He reached out to bop her on the nose as he passed her. “So they ended up here by accident, maybe the ship is too badly damaged to house the eggs, or otherwise not appropriate, who knows? So Easter Island is not their first choice of, of _nest_ , that makes more sense, maybe that’s what they were looking so worried about. It’s not quite suitable in some way. But how? What’s unsuitable for eggs? I mean they’re not likely to be eaten by anything at that size, not going to fall out of a tree, so what’s wrong?”

River frowned. “Would they need incubating? That ship must have been freezing cold inside, Doctor – what if they had to bring them out into the warmth? And perhaps it’s not quite warm _enough_.”

“That,” the Doctor said, slowing, “is brilliant. Because they were warm, those eggs, but not _that_ warm. Human body temperature, give or take—speaking of which, where _are_ all the humans anyway? Did they all run and hide when they saw the big bad bunnies coming?”

“Dead, would be my guess,” River said, pulling at her shoelaces just a little too tightly.

“You’re such an optimist, aren’t you?”

“We haven’t seen any trace of them at all,” River pointed out. “They were probably terrified when they saw those creatures, and one wrong move can be all it takes to get your entire population wiped out.” She shrugged. “Or maybe the big bad bunnies ate them.”

“Bunnies do not _eat_ people. We _saw_ that they’d been eating the plants,” he reminded her, stopping before her to pull her to her feet.

“Fine, fine.” She bent to pick his bowtie up off the floor and proceeded to tie it. “But I wouldn’t hold out too much hope for them, sweetie. You know that sometimes not everybody lives.”

The Doctor closed his eyes. “Yes,” he conceded. “Yes. I know.”

 

Their next encounter with the giant rabbits didn’t go much better than the first.

“I just want to _talk_ to you!” the Doctor cried, wincing as a plasma burst singed the outcropping of rock he and River were sheltering behind.

“Ha!” said a loud, gruff voice. “You tell that to the one whose hand you blew off!”

The Doctor glared at River then, who sighed and called out, “Look, I’m sorry about that, but you shot at us first!”

“You were molesting the eggs, mendacious mammals! They must not be touched until the Hatching!”

“ _Molesting_?” the Doctor said, offended. “I was only trying to work out what they were doing there!” River elbowed him and he continued, “But I’m sorry, I didn’t mean them any harm! Like I said, I want to help!”

“You can help us by _dying_ , primitive scum! We have more important things to worry about than your puny attempts to deceive us!”

River looked at him. “This is getting us nowhere, Doctor.”

Another plasma burst chipped away and their cover and he crouched down, nodding. “You’re right. Can you get us away without letting them kill us?”

“Of course I can.” She grabbed his hand. “ _Run_.”

 

“They said they had more important things to worry about,” the Doctor said a short but exhausting while later, leaning back against the console. “It must be the eggs.”

“What do we do about it, though? They clearly don’t want our help.” River stood next to him, folding her arms.

“Does that mean we shouldn’t give it?”

“Usually, Doctor, yes it does.” She looked at him pointedly. “Why do I get the feeling you’re going to try to help anyway?”

He grinned. “Because you know me so very well.”

“Sometimes, I really wish I didn’t.”

“Nonsense. You love it.”

The corner of her mouth twitched upwards. “Maybe just a bit.” She pushed off from the console, wandering over to the scanner. “So what’s the plan?”

“Well.” His grin grew wider. “I think it’s high time we took another look at that ship.”

 

From the inside, this time.

They stepped out of the TARDIS and into a freezing cold corridor, the Doctor wrapping his long scarf more tightly around his neck.

“It still looks ridiculous, sweetie,” River remarked. She herself was wearing a thick coat, beneath which she had hidden what seemed like her whole arsenal of weapons.

“I used to be very attached to this scarf, I’ll have you know,” he replied, fishing in his pocket for his screwdriver. “I wore it all the time. Even when it wasn’t cold.”

River rolled her eyes. “Please tell me I won’t know you then.”

“Spoilers, dear.” He led the way down the corridor. “Come on. The environmental controls should be close.”

The ship was dark and quiet in addition to being colder than ice, and the Doctor wondered if it had been abandoned completely now.

That was when they found the bodies.

A narrower corridor led off from the main one and he almost walked past it – then trod carefully backwards when his mind had registered exactly what it was that he had seen.

Giant rabbits, carefully laid out side by side, each one a stiff, frozen corpse. There were more than two dozen in all. Some had been positioned in a dignified manner, but others had clearly frozen solid before anyone could move them and were stuck in odd and inappropriate poses.

And there, at the other end of the corridor of the dead, was a bank of flickering lights which almost certainly housed the environmental controls.

The Doctor swallowed.

“That way?” River asked – another rhetorical question apparently, because she was already moving past him and picking her way over the first of the bodies.

“Of course,” the Doctor answered anyway, following gingerly. “Where else would they be?”

“Oh, they could be in a nice, warm, scented room, filled with interesting historical artifacts.”

“Or filled with custard.”

“Now Doctor, don’t make it worse than it already is.”

They made their way past the rest of the dead rabbits silently, and River produced her scanner when she reached the controls. The Doctor hung around feeling superfluous as she worked.

“The system’s taken some serious damage, but I think it can be repaired,” she said at length.

“Can you tell what the temperature is supposed to be in here?”

She knitted her brows, turning to the control pattern and pressing buttons. “Thirty-nine degrees Celsius, as far as I can tell.”

“Definitely too cold, then.”

“Yes.” River paused, looking pensive. “We could fix it, but the bodies...”

The Doctor looked back down the corridor. “Perhaps best to leave it at the moment. We’ve got the information we need.”

River nodded, and they went back to the TARDIS in silence.

 

“How long do you think it will take?” River asked once they were back in the control room. She pulled a lever, sending them out of the gloomy ship and into the air a few dozen metres above the rabbits’ nest.

“Depends how mature the eggs are already,” the Doctor said, fiddling with the controls on the other side of the console. “I think they’re fairly far along, from the strength of the movements and heartbeats I felt, but of course we can’t really tell without a more thorough understanding of the biology.” He paused, his hand on the button that would extend the air shell – the 39 °C air shell. “I hope this will work.”

“Only one way to find out.”

The Doctor smiled. “Quite right.”

He pressed the button.

River walked over to the doors and pulled them open. “Nothing to see yet,” she remarked. “I can’t see the rabbits anywhere, actually. Perhaps they’ve gone back to the ship.”

The Doctor joined her, peering outside. “In that case, they’re probably going to be rather angry when they come back and find they can’t get into their nest.”

“Couldn’t we turn it off for them, just for a moment?”

He frowned. “Not sure what that would do to the eggs. I’ve set the temperature to increase gradually – if they’re oversensitive to temperature changes, turning the shell off and on again suddenly could kill them all.”

“Well then. The expectant parents will just have to be patient, won’t they?”

 

Not unsurprisingly, they weren’t.

“The shell’s holding, but only just!” the Doctor yelled, bracing himself as another plasma burst hit the air shell and caused the TARDIS to shake violently.

“How much longer will it last?” River called back, holding tight to the underside of the scanner.

“Not much! Any eggs hatching yet?”

She ran for the door, gripping the handle firmly as she looked down. “Not that I can see.” She hesitated and then, with a look of determination, hurried out of the console room.

“River! Where are you going?”

There was no reply, and he busied himself with the controls, trying to boost the air shell’s strength just a little bit more. The TARDIS shook again, sending him falling back against the railing, where someone grabbed his arm from behind, causing him to yelp in surprise.

“Relax, sweetie, it’s only me,” said River, reaching into his pocket to pilfer his screwdriver from it.

“What are you doing?” he asked, noting that she now had her vortex manipulator strapped to her wrist.

“Going to distract them. It’s the only way we can possibly stay here long enough for the eggs to hatch.”

“River—“

“I know, I know, I won’t kill them and I won’t get killed myself. See you later, my love,” she said, pecking him on the lips before activating the manipulator.

She had taken his screwdriver with her, he noted belatedly.

A couple more plasma bursts caused him to fall headfirst onto the console rather than walk towards it at a normal pace, but after that they stopped.

River’s plan, whatever it was, was apparently working. Not that that was unexpected. She was River, after all.

He went back to the doors and leaned out, squinting into the distance. He thought he could still hear plasma fire, but it was getting fainter now. Clearly she was leading them a merry chase away from the eggs.

The Doctor closed the doors again and tried not to worry. He knew how she died, after all, and it wasn’t here.

Well. Wasn’t supposed to be here. Time could be rewritten, of course, but he preferred not to think about that. Because if he did, he soon ended up wondering how certain other times might be rewritten, and he was nowhere near working that out yet.

One day, he promised himself, he would.

But there were things to be done right now, other lives to save, so he pushed that thought to the back of his mind and went back to trying to puzzle out what had happened to all the humans.

 

The Doctor checked periodically on the eggs, and just before sundown one of them very abruptly developed a hairline crack.

He bounced up and down excitedly, wishing he was there on the ground to witness this close up. The beginning of a new life was such an exciting event; he only hoped the tiny creature wouldn’t need its parents right away, because they and River had been gone without a trace for hours.

Not that there was any need to worry, of course, he told himself.

The crack in the egg widened slowly, for all the suddenness of its appearance, so the Doctor wasn’t paying much attention when, an hour or so later, a slow trickle of dark brown fluid began to emerge from it... followed more swiftly by a human arm.

 _That_ got his attention.

He jumped to his feet, staring, and wished again that he were down on the ground; for entirely different reasons, this time. He had absolutely no idea what was going on, which was both unusual and unsettling, and there was nothing he could do but watch.

The brown goop continued to trickle out of the egg, and then came gushing out when the crack finally grew enough to split the egg in two. Spilled onto the ground with it were two figures; one a miniature version of the giant rabbits, and one human, a young boy.

Only the rabbit was moving.

The Doctor fidgeted, wondering if he shouldn’t go down there anyway, air shell be damned, and see if he could help. Except he couldn’t tell if the boy was even alive, and even if he was, did that mean there was a human trapped inside each of these eggs? Should he try to break them out? But that would be risking the rabbit babies’ lives, and even if their parents had spent a good part of the last few days trying to kill him it wasn’t exactly their fault, was it. and—

The baby rabbit was licking the boy’s face.

Squinting, the Doctor knelt back down. It was unlikely, of course, he thought, but just perhaps...

When the boy’s face was completely clear of the slime the rabbit moved its tongue down past his neck, licking with regular motions that almost resembled... chest compressions.

The boy coughed, reaching up to stroke the rabbit’s back, and the Doctor found that he was grinning like an idiot.

Well, well, well.

Symbiosis always had been one of his favourite biological oddities.

 

River returned with the adult rabbits about half an hour after the last egg had hatched. Most of the humans were playing with the little baby bunnies, with only a few of the elders having what looked like a serious but cheerful conversation off to one side.

The little rabbits all bounded towards the edge of the air shell when the older ones arrived, and River looked up at the TARDIS and nodded to him.

He took that as a sign to take the risk and deactivate the shell for a few moments while he parked the TARDIS in a much more convenient position on the ground, reactivating it once the reunited rabbits were all inside the perimeter.

The largest one immediately strode towards him, cutting an imposing enough figure for the Doctor to take an involuntary step backwards. River was following, though, and he stopped when she raised her eyebrows at him.

“We apologise,” the giant rabbit said in a deep voice. “Now we recognise that you were truly trying to help. Please accept our humble gratitude.” He dropped to one knee, bending his head in what was clearly a gesture of submission.

“Oh, get up,” the Doctor said dismissively. “It’s fine. No hard feelings, eh?”

The rabbit raised its head, but made no move to stand. “You must understand,” he said. “When it comes to our children, nothing is more important than their protection.”

“We understand,” River said, stepping closer to the Doctor. “We feel the same way.”

He wasn’t quite sure he agreed with that – after all, he and River hadn’t been planning to _hurt_ the children, in fact to begin with they hadn’t even known that the children exist—

Wait. River _was_ talking about the eggs, right?

Right? Not about any children that she herself might have, surely?

_Right?_

She was looking at him, he realised, smiling that smile that meant she was not going to answer any of his questions with anything but _spoilers_.

Dammit. He wanted to _know_.

Because, quite frankly, the thought absolutely terrified him.

The rabbit was saying something again; the Doctor realised abruptly, and put on his best I-was-paying-attention-all-along face. River, he could tell, was not fooled for an instant.

“We would be honoured if you would join us in the ceremony,” the giant rabbit concluded.

“Indeed! Yes! Yes, so would I!” the Doctor agreed pleasantly, mouthing a _What?_ behind the rabbit’s back when it was distracted by getting itself to its feet.

River just grinned enigmatically. He hated it when she did that.

They were led across the clearing to where the older humans were sitting on a fallen log. The oldest, perhaps the tribe’s leader, was holding the broken-off tip of the narrowest egg like a cup, and passed it reverently to the rabbit when he reached them.

“River Song tells us you are known as The Doctor,” the rabbit said, kneeling once more. “Please, The Doctor, saviour of our Hatching, drink of our nectar so that we might all share in your wisdom.”

The Doctor took the piece of eggshell carefully, sniffing at the brown liquid inside. It smelled... familiar.

Shrugging, he took a sip.

Oh! It was almost like... _chocolate_.

“Thank you,” he said, handing it back to the rabbit, who passed it on to River. “I am truly honoured.”

He watched River’s face as she took her turn. It was so rare that he knew something in advance of her – especially something _nice_. She raised her eyebrows when she tasted it, and he grinned.

The egg-cup was passed around the rest of the crowd, being refilled several times from the liquid remaining in the now unoccupied shells around them. The Doctor judged that there were hundreds of litres of the stuff lying around. He wondered what would happen to it all.

Drums and other instruments were being dragged out from some hiding place now, and the Doctor found his hand suddenly being grabbed by a little girl, who was leading him into the centre of the clearing where others were already beginning to dance.

The Doctor grinned. He was never one to refuse a dance.

River was talking to the rabbits, he noted as he jumped around, twirling and laughing and soon surrounded by small children, both human and rabbit. This often happened to him, he had noticed – he had no idea why, but he wasn’t about to complain.

Though it did make him wonder again about River’s words.

He would ask her about it, he decided. That was the only way to know. Besides, the worst that could happen was that she’d say _Spoilers_.

Or _yes_.

No. No, no, no, no, no, he mustn’t think like that; shouldn’t think about it at all, really. What good would it do, after all? Even if River deigned to tell him anything, the future was not set in stone. Things could always be changed, for better or worse.

And dammit, whenever he was reminded of that fact he was reminded of River. River who was all calm acceptance of the fact that he had seen her die. How could she do that? How could she be so... so...

The Doctor exhaled in frustration, unable to find a suitable adjective. He looked around, looking for the woman he was trying to describe instead, and found her dancing with some baby rabbits behind him. She looked up, grinning, and he wasn’t sure if it was he who moved closer or she but they were suddenly dancing together, swaying to a tune bearing little resemblance to what the islanders were actually playing.

“You are a terrible dancer, my love,” she remarked, leaning against his chest.

“And you are incredibly rude,” he said, mildly offended.

“Nonsense. I was very polite to the giant rabbits, despite them trying to vaporise me at every turn. I hardly shot at them at all.”

“I admire your restraint.”

“Thank you.” She pressed a kiss to the fabric of his shirt. “Did you know that these people _volunteered_ to be trapped inside the eggs? They seem to think the rabbits are some kind of gods – really they just needed some heat sources for the developing embryos, of course. One of the islanders described the process to me. It’s absolutely fascinating; apparently they retained some level of consciousness, allowing them to form a bond of sorts with the babies before they were even born.” River looked at the humans and rabbits interacting all around them. “Sometimes I do still have faith in humanity.” She paused. “And then I discover that they think you’re some kind of über-god, and I have to wonder.”

The Doctor laughed, resting his chin on top of her tied-back curls. “What was that about not being rude?”

“I lied.”

“You do that a lot, I’ve noticed.”

“You’re one to talk, sweetie. Or you will be.”

“Isn’t that a spoiler?”

“Oh, shut up.” She slapped him lightly on the chest and then straightened. “Looks like they want our attention,” she told him, nodding at where the older rabbits and humans were assembled once more.

They ambled over hand in hand, and the largest rabbit, who was probably the leader and probably had a _name_ , come to think of it, but the Doctor hadn’t heard it used, motioned for a human boy to bring over a pot filled with chocolatey goop.

“The Doctor and River Song,” he said, inclining his head. “As a sign of our gratitude we present you with the gift of nectar. May its sweetness ease your troubles.”

“Thank you,” the Doctor said, accepting the pot and deciding not to comment on its stickiness. “By the way, saw your ship – I’m sure we could help you to fix it up, if—“

“Already did that, sweetie,” River mumbled, holding up his screwdriver.

“I... oh,” the Doctor said, his train of thought momentarily derailed; River had a habit of doing that. Then he brightened. “In that case, perhaps we’d better be off. If you just move your ship a bit closer, I’m sure you can keep the place heated well enough for your little ones.” He took on a sterner tone. “And you will leave once you’ve finished your celebrations, won’t you? The rest of this world isn’t aware of extraterrestrials yet, and now is not the right time for them to find out.”

The rabbits nodded their assent, so he and River made their goodbyes and headed back to the TARDIS.

“This is _brilliant_ ,” the Doctor remarked, licking excess chocolate off the outside of the pot as he kicked the door closed behind him. “Think of all the delicious things we can do with it!” He wondered if it would go well with fish fingers.

River was at the controls already, in the process of flying them into the vortex. “Oh, I’ve thought of several already,” she said with a wink. “In fact,” she continued, pulling a lever to park them comfortably nowhere in particular, “I can think of a few that we should do _right now_.”

He reached the top of the steps and she met him there, looking at him with a glint in her eyes that he definitely recognised by now; that glint that led to touching and kissing and fantastic sex, and sex led to babies and, and... and he had to ask, he just had to.

“River,” he said, licking his lips, and hurried past her to put the pot down on the jump seat. He continued without looking up. “River, do we... I mean, will we ever have... _offspring_?” He turned to see her reaction. 

River’s breath seemed to have caught in her throat; she stood completely still, eyes wide, so clearly this was not a question she could answer without emotion, but what could that mean, exactly?

“Oh, sweetie.” River sighed, shaking her head and taking three swift steps forward, and she leaned in to press her lips gently to his. “Spoilers,” she whispered.

“Right,” he whispered back. Then, because there was nothing else to say even if he wanted to, he bent to pick up the pot. “So,” he said cheerily. “Chocolate?”

River smiled, the glint returning to her eyes. “Perfect.”

The Doctor kissed her again. “Good.”

He didn’t even notice that he’d stopped trying to escape her until years later, and by then it was very definitely too late.

Fortunately, he didn’t mind a bit.


End file.
